REVIEW: Sleeping With Sirens – If You Were a Movie, This Would Be Your Soundtrack

June 26th, 2012 Adrian Garza

Artist: Sleeping With Sirens
Album: If You Were a Movie, This Would be Your Soundtrack
Genre: Acoustic, Post-Hardcore
Label: Rise Records

Do I really have to introduce Sleeping With Sirens? To make a long story short, this Orlando, FL based band has been making waves in the post-hardcore realm for the last 3 short (but very sweet) years. To say that Kellin Quinn is a decent vocalist would be an complete understatement. The group has already released two full lengths through Rise Records, with this acoustic ep being their third work for the label.

You know, acoustic ep’s have a certain weight or prestige behind them. Many times, you expect things like piano renditions of the heavier instrumental breaks, covers of other band’s songs, and complete genre-straying reworkings of some of the songs within the band’s back catalogue. This album has 5 songs to it, 2 oldie-but-goodies, and 3 new songs. “James Dean & Audrey Hepburn” has a run of the mill “scene-acoustic” feel to it. The next track, “Roger Rabbit” could very much be considered a straight-up R&B song. “Don’t You Ever Forget About Me” is the most upbeat song on the album with some very hopeful lyrics.

I’ll be totally honest, I was very disappointed to find that the band’s cover of “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls that was put up on YouTube last month wasn’t on this album. Maybe that was simply done to promote, or maybe it was done to avoid the many legal complexities that exist within the industry. Either way, releasing a cover had definitely helped the band with exposing themselves to a different audience, and maybe that’s one of the many ambitions that fuels the desire to put out an acoustic ep.

Did this impress me? Yes. Will I continue to keep listening to this ep in the weeks to come? Probably. I’ve had very few kicks of listening to any post-hardcore band on Rise Records, but I wouldn’t consider this an acoustic-flavored post-hardcore album, I would count this as a post-hardcore flavored acoustic album (save for “Roger Rabbit”). If it wasn’t for SWS’ distinctive and crafty songwriting skills, I would consider this Quinn’s (great) attempt at a solo project.